WALES — The Oak Hill football team hosted its annual Heroes Game on Saturday, with the players wearing camouflage uniform tops, and members of the military and first responders were honored before the game. It then took a couple players to be heroes for the Raiders to hold on for a 26-14 win against Old Orchard Beach in a Class D South clash.
Oak Hill (2-0) looked like it was going to pick up where it left off against Maranacook last week, with the Raiders jumping out to a 14-0 lead halfway through the first quarter. Steven Gilbert and Cruz Poirier both had touchdown runs.
But the Seagulls (0-1) responded with a touchdown drive capped off by a 29-yard touchdown pass from Dylan Boudreau to Kyle Allen, then recovered a fumble at their own 1-yard line to stop Oak Hill from going back up two scores.
Old Orchard Beach went 99 yards in 15 plays to tie the game. Boudreau did the honors, running it in himself from 2 yards out to cap off a drive that lasted nearly eight minutes.
“That was a great drive,” Oak Hill coach Stacen Doucette said.
That 14-14 score stood at the end of the second quarter, and the Seagulls got the ball to start the third.
“I loved the way we responded to the hole we dug,” OOB coach Dean Plante said. “We thought we had all the momentum going into (halftime).”
The Seagulls proceeded to fumble away that momentum by failing to hold onto the kickoff, and a block in the back penalty added insult to injury and put OOB at its own 3-yard line to start the drive.
After a three-and-out, Darryn Bailey returned a punt 30 yards down to the OOB 5-yard line to start a short scoring drive. Quarterback Matthew Strout kept the ball on both plays, the second run going for 2 yards into the end zone to make it 20-14.
“I used to play fullback, so I’m kind of a fullback-quarterback,” Strout said. “It’s what I do.”
The defenses then ruled the rest of the third quarter. OOB drove down to the Oak Hill 30-yard line, only for a Boudreau pass to get intercepted by Gilbert in the end zone. The Seagulls then returned the favor, with Dylan Creswell intercepting Strout five plays later. Gilbert then made amends four plays after that, recovering a Creswell fumble and dragging a defender 15 yards.
“It was two seniors that made plays,” Doucette said. “I tell the seniors, ‘How do you want to be remembered?’ And they both made great plays. That’s our little saying, and they came through in crunch time.”
The teams traded punts before the Raiders put together another touchdown drive. Strout ran the ball on four of the drive’s final five plays, and completed a pass on the other, with a 1-yard run capping off the drive.
Boudreau then was tasked with being the hero for OOB in trying to mount a comeback. The junior quarterback ran or threw on each of the 18 plays that made up the Seagulls’ last-ditch drive, which fizzled with a strip-sack at the 13-yard line. OOB had moved the ball all the way from its own 25, and twice Boudreau ran for first downs on fourth-down plays.
“Boudreau’s as good a quarterback as there is in the division,” Plante said. “I think he’s our centerpiece, and we go from there.”
Doucette said his team doesn’t have a focal point on offense, and the stats showed that Saturday. Seven different players ran the ball for the Raiders.
“I think that’s the type of team we are,” Doucette said. “We’re not a one-star team, we are a group. We go with what works, not who works.”
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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